subjects. Nowhere are such severe punishments inflicted. For drinking
brandy the punishment is, pouring molten lead down the throat; and for
running away from the army, the punishment is, cutting off both legs, and
leaving the poor creature to bleed to death. A man for choosing to be a
Christian was beaten all over the body with a wooden mallet, till he was
one mass of bruises; but before he was dead, he was let go.

Every one is much afraid of offending this cruel king. The people tremble
at the sound of his name; and when they see him, they fall down with
their heads in the dust. The king makes any one a lord whom he pleases,
yet he treats even his lords very rudely. When displeased with them, he
will hunt them out of the room with his drawn sword. Once he made forty
of his lords lie upon their faces for several hours, beneath the broiling
sun, with a great beam over them to keep them still. It was well for them
that the king did not send for the men with spotted faces. Who are those
men? The executioners. Their faces are always covered with round marks
tattooed in the skin. The sight of these spotted faces fills all the
people with terror. Every one runs away at the sight of a spotted face,
and no one will allow a man with a spotted face to sit down in his house.
In what terror the poor Burmese must live, not knowing when the order for
death will arrive. Yet the king is so much revered, that when he dies,
instead of saying, "He is dead," the people say, "He is gone to amuse
himself in the heavenly regions"

The king has a great many governors under him, and they are as cruel as
himself. A missionary once saw a poor creature hanging on a cross. He
inquired what the man had done, and finding that he was not a murderer,
he went to the governor to entreat him to pardon the man. For a long
while the governor refused to hear him: but at last he gave him a note,
desiring the crucified man to be taken down from the cross. Would you